Opening Night Is Stressful Enough Before You Add Norovirus and a Cyberattack

by Chris Peterson

There are many things that can go wrong before a show opens.

A costume zipper gives up the ghost ten minutes before curtain. Someone realizes the prop that is absolutely essential to Act Two is still sitting on a table in the rehearsal room. A cast member asks, “Wait, was I supposed to cross downstage there?” and suddenly everyone within earshot loses five years off their life.

This is theatre. Chaos is baked in.

But even by our industry’s already deranged standards, what happened at Minnesota’s Chanhassen Dinner Theatres last week feels like the theatre gods sat around a conference table and said, “How many problems can we throw at one production before opening night?”

The answer, apparently, is: norovirus and a cyberattack.

Which is not so much a tech week problem as it is the plot of a very specific disaster movie.

According to local news, Chanhassen Dinner Theatres had to cancel nearly a week of performances of Guys and Dolls after a norovirus outbreak among the cast. And because apparently that wasn't enough, the theatre also faced a cyberattack that forced part of its computer network offline.

Now, I have been around theatre long enough to know that the final days before opening are never calm. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying, producing community theatre for the first time, or has blocked out the trauma as a survival mechanism.

Opening night is where optimism goes to be tested.

It is the point in the process when everyone is exhausted, the notes are somehow both too many and not enough, and the phrase “we’ll fix it tomorrow” starts to sound less like a plan and more like a prayer. 

Years ago, I was involved in a production of Don’t Drink the Water, and in the final stretch before opening, our lead got sick. Sick enough that the entire production suddenly had that familiar theatre panic humming underneath it.

And then, during final dress, the set fell over. Not a prop. Not a chair. The set.

It is one thing to worry about whether the jokes will land. It is another thing entirely to look at your set flat on the floor.

So yes, things go wrong.

It does not usually mean a highly contagious stomach virus taking out enough of your cast that even swings and understudies cannot save the day, while your computer systems are simultaneously being attacked.

That is not theatre stress. That is a cursed production calendar.

And yet, as absurd as the headline may sound from a distance, it is also a pretty good reminder of just how much has to go right for any performance to happen at all.

To Chanhassen’s credit, the theatre appears to have taken the situation seriously. KSTP reported that they worked with the Minnesota Department of Health, implemented enhanced cleaning procedures, and required staff to be symptom-free before returning. They also offered no-cost exchanges for ticket holders who were not comfortable attending right away.

Good on them for doing that. Sometimes, the more responsible thing is admitting that the show cannot go on tonight. Not safely. Not properly. Not under those conditions.

The encouraging news is that performances were set to resume. And that is the part of the story worth focusing on.

Because after the cleaning, after the troubleshooting, after the phone calls, after the schedule changes, after the public statements, after the deeply unpleasant week nobody signed up for, the curtain rises again. That is the real miracle of theatre.

So best wishes to the cast, crew, musicians, staff, box office team, cleaning crews, IT folks, creative team, and everyone else at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres’ as Guys and Dolls gets back up and running.

And may everyone’s digestive system behave like a true professional.